Oakland moves closer to adopting open data policy

Oakland’s city council has published a proposed city-wide open data policy that will be reviewed by the finance and management committee on October 8 and, if approved, moves to the full council for a final vote scheduled for October 15.

The policy calls for the city “to make every reasonable effort to publish its data in machine readable formats using prevailing open standards” and directs the city administrator to lead the effort under a specific timeline.

The proposed policy is based on a draft floated by the Urban Strategies Council after Councilmember Libby Schaaf approached OpenOakland for assistance in developing the policy.

In April 2012, the council voted to have the city administrator conduct an open data cost-benefit analysis review, which produced the Open Data System Implementation Report released the following June.